Intermediate Lesson 26 - Book of Habakkuk

MESSAGE FOR PEOPLE TODAY FROM THE BOOK OF HABAKKUK

Church: Sardis                                         Lesson 31 out of 39                                 Theme: Holy Spirit

Background Information

ü  We asked in the book of 1 Kings, “How can the creation know how to accept the Holy Spirit?

ü  In Esther, we were awakened to learn how the world will try to confuse the message of Jesus’ sacrifice by making laws that will satisfy the flesh.

ü  In Isaiah, we learned from the Spirit of the Lord how to remember to be a witness who can understand how to present our body as a living sacrifice by responding to the calling of the Holy Spirit.

ü  In Joel, we learned how to be a witness who lines up our testimony with the Chief Cornerstone (the sacrifice Christ made) by calling on the Holy Spirit when we are surrounded by an untoward generation.

Statement of Faith to Say Amen to for the Book of Habakkuk:

I can communicate with the Holy Spirit.

Essential Question

How does the world teach us to build our temple by satisfying the flesh and blaspheming the Holy Spirit?

book of Habakkuk - Lesson thirty-one

Have students read pages 154-157 in The Pattern of Sound Teaching.

After students read the information ask them, "What do you want to talk about?"

Remember the Issue:

Realizing that Jesus made a sacrifice for our sin and how He can make an intersession for us is important. The world is not teaching us how to look to Jesus’ sacrifice and to love the family of God.

Remember the Truth Jesus Brought:

Habakkuk is the prophet who communicated with the Holy Spirit. Prophets usually talk to people about God; however, Habakkuk talks to God about people. God and Habakkuk have a conversation through prayer. The world does not want us to talk to God. The world wants us to blame God for the injustice of the world.

Remember the Rock God Established:

Habakkuk asked God two questions:

(1)   How can God allow so much lawlessness (evil) in the world?

(2)   Why did God pick Babylon to execute judgment?

Habakkuk then waited for an answer. Habakkuk said this is how the Holy Spirit answers people.

Habakkuk was told to write down this revelation for people to read: This is a work that I am doing for an appointed time. This is the work that will make sense in the end. Habakkuk tells God that there are people who only have desires that are not upright.

A fruitful person will live by faithfulness. As it is written in Philippians 1:11, “Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.” A fruitful person has a spirit in them that lives by faith. At the appointed time, the wine will betray the enemy of the fruitful person because the enemy will be puffed up, greedy, and never satisfied. Only living water will satisfy us. The wine will reveal that their spirit is not living by faith. At an appointed time, people who are living by faithfulness will say plenty about the enemy who carries them away. At an appointed time, the people bearing fruits of the spirit will say:

(1)   Woe to him who steals from others to build themselves up.

(2)   Woe to him who has built his house by cheating other people to do it.

(3)   Woe to him who builds their country by shedding blood and cheating people.

(4)   Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbor in hopes of getting them drunk to take advantage of them.

(5)   Woe to him who thinks that wood comes alive.

We have a spirit, and we have to believe that there is more than the flesh of this world to satisfy us. Habakkuk listened to the voice of the Lord and realized that there is more than this world. People who are living by the Holy Spirit will be inquiring and praying to the Holy Spirit, and they will listen to what the Holy Spirit says for them to do. This is living by faithfulness. The people living by faithfulness realize that there is a bigger plan at work. Things work together for the glory and holiness of God. In the end, there is going to be the wrath of woes for people who are living by the flesh.

Habakkuk learned that even if God explained to him why He is doing what He is doing, Habakkuk still would not understand God. However, God said at an appointed time, everything will be understood. Habakkuk moved from an unbelief that God is unable to save him to a belief that God could save him. People have to believe that God has a plan that is working all things to His glory and that in the end at an appointed time, it will all come to be a wonderous and thought-provoking event.

By listening to the Jezebel spirit in the church of Sardis, this behavior will spiral into a more serious behavior in the church of Philadelphia. Habakkuk gives an example of how when we run to do evil it will spiral into a worse behavior of being an evil spirit that is prejudiced against the word of God. As it was written in Habakkuk 1:3, “For the wicked surround the righteous; therefore, perverse judgment proceeds.” Habakkuk said the righteous will see an end to the injustice of the world at an appointed time. He believed that God was able to save him. When we are prejudiced against the word of God we are assuming that perverse judgment proceeds from God. In the church of Philadelphia, the next sinful behavior is being prejudiced against the word of God.

Activity:

The activity directions are located in Appendix 5.

Students will build two different structures that will represent the choices we make in life when we are building our internal temple. One will line up with the Chief Cornerstone and the other will not.

Conclusion:

Does the world teach us to line up with the Chief Cornerstone (the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made)?

Next Lesson:

The next church, Philadelphia, teaches us how behaviors will spiral from accepting God’s grace to sharing God’s mercy, repenting, new covenant faithfulness, a Holy Spirit, to being made righteous by the word of God when we line up our living sacrifice with the Chief Cornerstone. When we do not line up our living sacrifice with the Chief Cornerstone, we will seek prosperity, be proud, believe lying vanities, be unfaithful to the new covenant, listen to the Jezebel spirit, and be prejudiced against the word of God. Being prejudiced to the word of God is the result of unbelief that God will save us. Habakkuk moved from an unbelief that God is unable to save him to a belief that God could save him.